Panel Backs Lifting Limits at John Wayne

Airport growth for Orange County should be accommodated by lifting passenger and flight limits at John Wayne Airport, a move which could nearly double its capacity, a coalition of South County cities declared late Monday.

The nonbinding resolution passed unanimously among the nine member cities of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, which was formed to fight the county’s plans to build a second airport at the retired El Toro Marine base.

The statement represents a retreat from last month, when ETRPA’s Executive Director Paul Eckles proposed a much harsher stance, including pushing for the elimination of nighttime curfews. The group also considered filing a lawsuit if the county and Newport Beach, John Wayne’s neighbor, attempted to maintain airport growth controls that expire in 2005.

The current curfew means no commercial planes can land or take off from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Members of ETRPA said the resolution was necessary because Newport Beach has been pushing for a new airport at El Toro. The county promised in 1985 to find a site for a second airport after Newport agreed to limited growth at John Wayne Airport.

“We’d like to see better utilization of John Wayne Airport, and that’s a fair position,” Mission Viejo Councilwoman Susan Withrow, ETRPA’s past chairwoman, said.

Expanding John Wayne Airport from its current cap of 8.4 million passengers a year to 14 million passengers--as suggested by ETRPA--would require extensive work, said Tom Naughton, who heads the Airport Working Group, which is based in Newport Beach and supports an El Toro airport.

Among the improvements necessary: relocating more than 500 private aircraft, extending the single commercial runway north to the San Diego Freeway and doubling the number of gates.

ETRPA also passed a resolution advocating greater use of Inland Empire airports.